The Archbishop of Arequipa (Peru), Mons. Javier del Río Alba, affirms that Lent is a time of “greater combat” against the demon to reach the glory of heaven; And therefore encourages Mount Tabor with Jesus, with the daily prayer and the reading of the Bible.
In his column for this second week of Lent, entitled “Upload to the Mount”, the Peruvian Prelate recalls that last Sunday the evangelist Saint Lucas recounts the temptations of Jesus and today his transfiguration before the apostles Peter, James and John.
Receive the main news of ACI Press by WhatsApp and Telegram
It is increasingly difficult to see Catholic news on social networks. Subscribe to our free channels today:
Both episodes show the Lord fully man and God, explains Mons. Del Río in the text sent to Aci Press, and “illuminate the meaning of Lent: time of greater fight against the insidies of the devil, in which we verify the fragility of our human nature, but which flows into the experience, deep in our being, of the victory of Jesus Christ over sin and death.”
These two events, the archbishop continues, “also illuminate the purpose of the Christian life”, which points to the resurrection, to eternal life in heaven.
“How not to thank God,” says the Archbishop of Arequipa – who in Christ transfigured reveals the meaning of our life, the glory for which we have been created? “
The Tabor scene continues, “in which Jesus speaks with Moses and Elijah of his next Easter (Passion, Death and Resurrection), he makes us present that the path of our divinization goes through the cross”, but that suffering does not compare with the glory of heaven.
Get to Mount Tabor with Jesus
Therefore, the prelate invites you to go up to Mount Tabor in this second week of Lent. “As? As Pope Francis says: ‘We go up to the mountain with prayer, silent prayer, the prayer of the heart, the prayer always looking for the Lord. Let’s stay some time in recollection, every day a little. ‘”
Mons. Del Río also encourages to read a passage from the Bible every day, remembering what San Juan Pablo II said in March 1979:
“Let’s listen to Jesus. Let us read a passage from the Bible every day. If we do so, not only this week but each time a little more, we will see that he is the incarnation of all human hope, ‘a hope that dissipates the darkness of our existence, sin and death.’ ”
Walter Sánchez Silva
I am husband since 2008. With my wife we have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before birth. Since I joined ACI Press in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Colonia, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the family’s synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Sinodality, in 2023. I follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers the persecution of the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as the ecclesial news in the region.